The Death of Optimism

Rachel bought a new furniture set over the weekend. She told me the shipping company said that it would be here Sunday afternoon. My response was, "Yeah right. There's no way they'll be here when they say they will." She gave me her typical dirty look she reserves for occasions when I wax cynical. But sure enough, 4:30 PM rolls around and they call us to say that they won't have it to us until "maybe Monday."

I did my little "jig of righteousness" but I took little comfort in being right AGAIN. This was all just very unsatisfying. Now, I've worked with freight companies in the past, and I know better than anyone that with them, equivocation is the name of the game. When they say "tomorrow", what they really mean is "the day after tomorrow, if the stars are right".

But lately I've been feeling this a lot. Of course our furniture's late, and we're sitting on the carpet watching TV while our old couch is out on the lawn. Of course our goverment doesn't work - what do these recall advocates expect?. Of course I've been temping for a year with no sign of permanency in sight - I mean, all I've done is work hard and show up every day. Of course those MTV Awards are going to suck. The Era of Diminished Expectations is upon us! Rejoice!

When did it become okay to be this cynical? When did it stop being a defense mechanism, and instead become a legitimate world-view? I look around, and I see a lot of messed-up people who've just thrown up their hands and said "This sucks, but what are you going to do?"